Becoming Death Read Online Free PDF

cushions. My chest tightened awkwardly as I stare at what my search had turned up.
    Nothing.
    It wasn’t there.
    My mind raced with thoughts. Had I imagined it? Could I be crazy? I know what I had seen before— right? I pushed at the fabric stretching across the sofa frame and felt the padding underneath.
    Rubbing my chin, I stood.
    She’d moved it.
    For the first time in my life, I wanted Clarissa to be right, for this trunk to have nothing to do with me—but, deep down, I knew she was wrong. Something didn’t add up. I felt drawn to it like a smoker desperate for their next cigarette. Whatever my mother was hiding, it was something dark.
    I needed to open it.
    I had to open it.
    My heart pounded so fiercely inside my chest that I was certain, or at least mostly certain, that if I didn’t find it soon, I’d die.
    Scanning the room, I noticed only one thing was different. The rug had been moved. I crossed the room, kicking it away and exposing a loose, sorely sticking up floorboard.
    Bingo.
    I found an unknown strength as I pulled away the boards with my bare hands. My fingers were raw by the time I’d finished—but I’d found it. My breathing grew heavy as I allowed myself to run my fingers over the carved letters spelling out my name. A pale smear of blood stained the wood. My fingers fit snugly into the grooves as if I had clawed these letters with my own nails.
    “Clark.” The word came out in a deep voice I didn’t recognize as my own.
    My fingers shook and, angrily, I told myself to calm down.
    I lunged forwards and pulled at the heavy lock guarding the trunk’s secret. The rust scraped my skin as I pulled harder and harder. Blood dipped down my wrists.
    I gritted my teeth, then let out a snarling, “Open, open right now!”
    It didn’t budge.
    I slammed the lock down against the wood and kicked my heel into it. “Open! Open!” I snatched up a vase from a nearby table and shattered it against the lock for extra measure. That didn’t bother to work either.
    I paused, staring down at my hand that was now covered in cuts and blood. The sight made me flinch. I wiped the blood on the bottom of my “Riga Tony is a loser” t-shirt. With my other hand, I pushed back my hair and rubbed my forehead, trying to initiate a moment of sanity.
    What had I done? Where was this feeling coming from? I searched for answers but my mind was cloudy—the only thing running through my head was: “Key. Find the key.”
    The words echoed in my mind until I found myself chanting them aloud. “Key… key… key… Where is the key?”
    I walked to my mother’s desk and yanked the drawers from their runners before dumping the contents onto the rug. Kneeling on the floor, I sifted through the contents in desperation.
    “Nothing!” I growled softly. Standing, I kicked the paper and pens in front of me.
    Where was it? Where would she hide it?
    I took the stairs to my mother’s bedroom, two at a time, gripping the railing tighter the higher as I went. Dizziness was over-taking me, but I couldn’t stop until that trunk was open.
    I tore into her bedroom, ransacking anything that could be a hiding spot. I ripped through my mother’s closet looking in every shoe, my father’s old golf bag and her gardening gloves. How long had she been hiding this secret? Maybe my whole childhood had passed with this dark secret looming overhead. Or maybe it had started more recently than that. Had my father known? What could she have to hide?
    I picked up the wooden jewelry box my father had given my mother for their first anniversary. My breathing slowed as I ran my fingers over the flower patterns painted on the top. I had always admired it. I opened the lid and the soft melody played, causing time to stop. I closed my eyes, taking in the sound while remembering a simpler time when my family was whole, happy and had no secrets to hide. After exhaling until the last notes wound down and left my mind, I neatly turned the box upside down,